Music and Ritual in a 16th Century Florentine with Laurie Stras: A Workshop for Upper Voices

Name: Music and Ritual in a 16th Century Florentine with Laurie Stras: A Workshop for Upper Voices
Start: 2025-02-15T10:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-02-15T17:00:00+00:00
Location: Wilmslow United Reformed Church, Chapel Ln, Wilmslow SK9 1PR

Schedule

Sat Feb 15 2025 at 10:00 am to 05:00 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

Wilmslow United Reformed Church, Chapel Ln, Wilmslow SK9 1PR | Wilmslow, EN

This workshop is for upper voices, all viols and lower pitch recorders, and will be led by Laurie Stras, Professor Emerita of Music at the University of Southampton and director of the ensemble Musica Secreta.
This workshop will cover music from the Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, MS 27766, held in the library of the Brussels Conservatoire, which is the only surviving manuscript of polyphonic repertoire from a sixteenth-century convent. The two nuns named on its binding, Clemenzia Sostegni and Agnoleta Biffoli, lived at the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, which later became home to Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, ‘Galileo’s Daughter’.
The manuscript contains 78 works for equal voices that would have adorned the convent’s worship at its most solemn feasts and for its daily devotions. This full day workshop will introduce you to this fascinating record of the musical lives of Florentine nuns at the end of the Renaissance, exploring its song, psalmody, motets, and imitation masses.
Workshop fees are £15 for NWEMF (and other EMF) members booked before 1 February (£20 after), and £20 for non-members. Students can attend for free.